Ted: Mr. Arend—RA: Please, don’t be so formal. Call me ‘The Robert’.
Fred: I will do no such thing. There are millions of Roberts in the world, Mr. Arend. You are not ‘The’ only one.
RA: I’m sorry you feel that way. You, however, think it’s perfectly all right to start off being ‘Ted’ and then switching to ‘Fred’.
Alex: In the latest Twin Trinity Media anthology Elements of Dimension you are listed as the writer of David and the Outside and Creation. Why only two?
RA: I got a poem in it, too.
Renee: Yes. Astral Voyeur. I want to explore that a bit later.
RA: Hey, first you flip from one name to another, now you change your sex. What’s next? Species?
Lizard: In David and the Outside, you present a scenario of a self-sufficient, controlled and seemingly underground society where no one is allowed to go outside. Was that story rooted in some personal experience?
RA: Yes.
Snake: Do you want to talk about it?
RA: No.
Tooth: I take it the event was too traumatic for you?
RA: How would you feel if you were kept inside every day having to learn reading, writing and math, even history!
Lady Gaga: Every child has to go through that, Mr. Arend. It’s called school.
RA: (tear streaming down his left cheek) Why me! Geography was the worse. All I wanted to do is run and play outside. Go fishing. Put frogs in my sister’s bed.
Elvis: Let’s move on. Your poem Astral Voyeur is about a lonely man whose spirit leaves his body to travel to the home of an old flame. He can see her, but she can’t see him. Is that a metaphor for all the unloved people society refuses to see?
RA: No. It’s about that creepy feeling when you think you’re being watched. You probably are, especially when you’re naked.
Naked Playmate: Is that how you feel when you’re in the shower, Mr. Arend
RA: Yes. That’s why I only shower when “American Idol” is on. I know nobody’s watching me then.
Harry Potter: Finally, in your short story, Creation, you posit that we write, produce, cast and direct everything in our lives from beyond the universe.
RA: Yes. We imagine everything, including ourselves.
Bill O’Reilly: Am I just a figure of your imagination, Mr. Arend?
RA: Of course.
Sarah Palin: Then why can’t you make me disappear, Mr. Arend?
RA: Oh, but I can. (blinks) You were never real in the first place.
End of interview.
Elements of Dimension is available in paperback at: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Dimension-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/0984209549
